Work on It Together
Build your influence and get everyone engaged in risk management.
Executive coaching grounded in safety science
Executive coaching for the people responsible for risk and safety. Risk managers, program administrators, and the senior leaders who oversee and support them.
A safety leader can't manage risk alone. Much of the job is about getting colleagues, staff, and leadership engaged in the risk management process, often without the positional authority to change individual and team behaviors. Yet when an incident occurs, the responsibility for leading the response falls to the safety leader, regardless of its cause. Coaching builds the influence to close that gap, so more of the organization shares the risk management work.
Safety Leadership Coaching
Coaching is organized around five challenges common to safety leadership. Each one is a real part of the role, and a leader who makes progress across them earns the influence to bring others into the risk management process.
Building Relationships. Safety work depends on trust. Before anything else, a safety leader has to build a relationship that makes people willing to raise problems early, hear a variety of perspectives, and ultimately, help to solve them.
Engaging Up, Down, and Across. A safety leader depends on people who do not report to them, including staff, peers, senior leaders, and outside partners. The job is to get them involved and engaged in risk management, like getting teachers to complete risk assessments or getting a board to truly understand safety risk and act accordingly.
Strategic Thinking and Systems Awareness. Safety is a system, and its parts affect one another. A safety leader has to see those connections and make sense of them for others in ways that change perspective and redirect attention and resources, rather than reacting to issues one at a time.
Managing Overwhelm and Prioritization. The role brings constant, competing demands, and no one can meet them all at once. The key is to read overwhelm as a signal about the system rather than a personal failing, and to manage your own capacity so you stay consistent and effective to support the organization and everyone in it.
Sustaining Self and Career. Tough incidents and continuous stress wear people down. Protecting your well-being and judgment lets you recover from difficult events and enjoy a long and rewarding career in the role.
Safety Leadership Coaching is six months of one-to-one coaching for safety leaders. You bring the challenge(s) in front of you. We work it through together until you have a way forward you trust.
How it works
One session a month, with support in between. Between sessions you get readings, podcasts, and frameworks to apply, chosen for the challenge you are working on.
From isolation to influence
Over six months, you bring colleagues, staff, and leaders into risk management. You move the needle or initiate transformational change. You move from isolation to influence.
Schedule 20 minutes to talk more about your challenges and goals.
The Coaching Process
Clarify
We start by getting clear on your situation, such as your context, your capacity, and the change you want. You finish this stage with defined goals, a way to measure progress, and a plan for the coaching.
2. Plan
We turn that into action. We find the few changes that shift the most, set your priorities, and design steps that fit your capacity and your situation. You finish with an action plan you have agreed to.
3. Integrate
You put the plan to work. We reflect on what happens, adjust as you learn, and track progress, so the changes hold after coaching ends. You finish with real progress, what you learned, and a plan to carry it forward.
Risk Management Strategy and Change Coaching
You see what your organization's risk management should become, and the work now is getting there. Maybe a review handed you recommendations. Maybe you are changing the culture, not just the policies. Either way, the change has to move through people who did not write it and do not yet own it.
Coaching gives you a thinking partner through that, someone who knows risk work and has no stake in your politics. You stay in charge. I help you choose what moves first, bring people along, and adjust as the organization reacts.
Who it is for
Executive directors, deans, COOs, and senior risk managers responsible for risk management at the organization level, leading a change in strategy, culture, or practice.
How it works
One-to-one, three or six months, set to the change you are leading.
Career Coaching
Most people in safety did not plan the path. You came from the field, or teaching, or operations, and the career took shape as you went. At some point you want to steer it instead of letting it happen to you.
That is the work here. Getting into a safety role, getting seen in the field, moving up, or deciding what comes next. Coaching helps you name where you want to go and build the visibility, positioning, and plan to get there.
Who it is for
Anyone building a career in safety and risk. Students and new professionals finding the first foothold, and established leaders who want more reach, recognition, or a path to what comes next.
How it works
One-to-one, scoped to where you are. Some people come for a single decision and a few sessions. Others work over months on visibility and positioning in the field.
Testimonials
"Stuart went beyond risk assessment and facilitated an in-depth program review. I highly recommend Slay Risk for anyone seeking a comprehensive, educationally driven consultation." Our program is large and complex. Stuart broke it down into manageable parts and provided knowledge, tools, and mentorship to empower our faculty and students to handle risk more effectively. Jennifer Frye, Internship Director, Dept. of Recreation Management & Policy
"I highly recommend Slay Risk for organizations seeking thorough risk analysis and meaningful capacity-building." Stuart's systematic approach helped us understand how to better manage risk for complex field placements. He identified and translated key risks into actionable strategies our team could implement. His approach is education-focused, and he prepared us to effectively advocate for higher-level policies at the institution. Jayson Seaman, Chair and Associate Professor, Dept. of Recreation Management & Policy
"I highly recommend Slay Risk for organizations seeking thorough risk analysis and meaningful capacity-building." Stuart's systematic approach helped us understand how to better manage risk for complex field placements. He identified and translated key risks into actionable strategies our team could implement. His approach is education-focused, and he prepared us to effectively advocate for higher-level policies at the institution. Jayson Seaman, Chair and Associate Professor, Dept. of Recreation Management & Policy
FAQs
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Scope sets the cost. A review can cover your whole risk management system or focus on one or two areas, and the price follows the depth you need. Tell me your budget and I will scope a review to fit it. Many organizations start with a focused review of a few priority areas, then expand later as capacity allows.
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No. Accreditation checks your organization against a defined set of standards. A Program Risk Review evaluates the effectiveness of your risk management in practice. A review goes further than a standards check. The review accounts for the context you work in, including the real barriers and constraints, and identifies improvements fit for your purpose. A review often points to the steps that meet a standard in your setting, so the two support each other.
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Yes. Organizations often use a review to prepare for accreditation or to give their board and external partners evidence of due diligence. The accrediting body still decides which evidence meets its standards.
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A review can be done remotely. A site visit adds context and is worth doing when operations and relationships need direct observation. Many reviews use both.
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It depends on scope and format. An in-person review can run in about a week (2-3 in person days). A larger or remote review can run over a month or several months, paced to your operations and the access to people and records. Tell me your situation and I will map a timeline to it.
Schedule 20 minutes, and let’s work it out together.
You don’t need to arrive with the problem named. A short conversation is usually enough to tell whether a review fits your situation, and what the right first step is.